ISSN (Online): 2321-3418
server-injected
Social Sciences and Humanities
Open Access

Humanism and the Urban Spaces in Meja Mwangi’s Novels

DOI: 10.18535/ijsrm/v10i4.sh01· Pages: 1037-1051· Vol. 10, No. 04, (2022)· Published: April 2, 2022
PDF
Views: 544 PDF downloads: 204

Abstract

Humanism is a conscious awareness and reciprocal actions of being humane. An individual’s efforts to be humane and to realize fully their own humanity is affected by the forces within and outside him or her. One of the roles of literature is to toy with this question of humanism, to describe its condition and how individuals strive to realize and exercise their humanity. This paper examines humanism and the urban environment as depicted in the selected novels of Kenya’s popular novelist, Meja Mwangi. To this end, Meja Mwangi’s popular fiction, Kill Me Quick (1973), Going Down River Road (1976) and The Cockroach Dance (1979) was critiqued in researching this question, given that literature reflects reality. The texts are Mwangi’s urban trilogy, among his forty-six novels. The study was qualitative in approach, employing analytical research design in the collection and analysis of data. The gathered data was analysed through content analysis. The study population comprised Kenyan popular fiction, with a special focus on novels by Meja Mwangi. The study further focused on Mwangi’s novels that are forty-six in number. Purposive sampling technique was employed with the inclusion criterion being Mwangi’s novels that address the humanistic issues being investigated. The sampled texts were Mwangi’s three urban-based novels mentioned above. The data was collected through close textual reading. Data collected was categorised along with the study’s units of analysis, namely Mwangi’s thematic concerns on humanism, characterisation, and narrative techniques. From the findings, a close reading of Kill Me Quick, Going Down River Road and The Cockroach Dance unravel instances and encounters with characters entangled in twists of fate in an urban locale. This is revealed through their actions, utterances and behaviour. It is also evident that the trilogy, particularly Kill Me Quick chronicles both rural and urban environments, whereas the other two centre on an urban locale. However, many issues have been raised in these novels about the urban space with its dislocation of individuals’ humane dispositions as their moral and cultural values gradually wane.

Keywords

HumanismUrban SpacesMeja MwangiNovels

References

  1. Awitor, E. F. (2013). The quest for social justice in Meja Mwangi’s The Cockroach Dance. AIC and Hermeneutics. Retrieved from http://www.mejamwangi.co/index.hnl or http://literture.britishcouncil.org/meja-mwangiGoogle Scholar ↗
  2. Barber, K. (1987). Readings in African Popular Culture. London: The International African Institute in Association with Indiana University Press.Google Scholar ↗
  3. Bardolph, J. (1984). The Literature of Kenya. In G. Killam (Ed.). The Writings of East and Central Africa. Nairobi: HeinemannGoogle Scholar ↗
  4. Bhabha, H. K. (2013). Narration and the nation. London: Routledge.Google Scholar ↗
  5. Calder, A. (1984). Meja Mwangi’s novels: The writing of East and Central Africa. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar ↗
  6. Eagleton, T. (2011). Why Marx was right. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar ↗
  7. Eagleton, T. (2013). How to Read Literature. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar ↗
  8. Egbunu, F. E. (2014). Africans and African Humanism: What Prospect? American International Journal of Contemporary Research, 4(1), 297-308.Google Scholar ↗
  9. Fanon, F. (1961). The Wretched of the Earth. France: Francois Maspero.Google Scholar ↗
  10. Habib, M. A. R. (2005). Modern Literary Criticism and Theory: A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to the Present. Australia, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Google Scholar ↗
  11. Oraegbunam, I. K. (2012). Humanism and the Law: Towards African Rennaissance. Ogirisi: A New Journal of African Studies, 9, 245-268.Google Scholar ↗
  12. Kanu, M. A. (2017). The Philosophical Background of African Humanism: The Genuine Way to Development. World Applied Sciences Journal, 35(9), 2015-2024.Google Scholar ↗
  13. Kehinde, A. (2004). Post-independence disillusionment in contemporary African fiction: The example of Meja Mwangi’s Kill Me Quick. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 13(2), 228-241.Google Scholar ↗
  14. Kehinde, A. (2005). Aesthetics of realism: The image of postcolonial Africa in Meja Mwangi’s Going Down River Road. Retrieved from http://arts/ bunel.ac.cu/gate/enterte/4.2/kehinde.PdfGoogle Scholar ↗
  15. Khomba, J. (2011). The African Ubuntu philosophy: Retrieved from http://repository.up.co.za/dspace/bitstream/hndei 2263/28705/04chapter5.pdfGoogle Scholar ↗
  16. Khoza, R. (2006). Ubuntu, botho, vhuntu, African humanism. Johannesburg.Google Scholar ↗
  17. Kula, A. (2016). The theme of human right in selected post-independence Kenyan literary texts. (Unpublished Doctoral Thesis). University of Nairobi, Nairobi.Google Scholar ↗
  18. Kurtz, R. (1993). Writing the postcolonial city; the representation of Nairobi in the Kenyan novel. University of Iowa, USA.Google Scholar ↗
  19. Kurtz, R. J. (1998). Urban obsession, urban fears: The postcolonial Kenyan novel. New York: Oxford African World Press.Google Scholar ↗
  20. Kurtz, R. (2005). Nyarloka’s Gift: The Writing of Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye. Nairobi: Mvule.Google Scholar ↗
  21. Lukacs, G. (1971). The Theory of the Novel: A Historico-Philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature. London: Whitstable Litho Printers Ltd.Google Scholar ↗
  22. Lutz, D. W. (2009). African urban philosophy and global management. Journal of Ethics, 84(3), 313-328.Google Scholar ↗
  23. Mbigi, L. (1997). The African dean in management. Ransburg: Knowledge Resources Ltd.Google Scholar ↗
  24. Mbiti, J. S. (1982). Introduction to African religion. Nairobi: Heinemann.Google Scholar ↗
  25. Mbiti,J. S. (1991). African Religion and Philosophy. Nairobi. Heinemann.Google Scholar ↗
  26. Myers, G. A. (2010). Seven themes in African dynamics. Uppsala, UK.Google Scholar ↗
  27. Mwangi, M. (1973). Kill Me Quick. Nairobi: EAEP.Google Scholar ↗
  28. Mwangi, M. (1976). Going Down River Road. Nairobi: EAEP.Google Scholar ↗
  29. Mwangi, M. (1979). The Cockroach Dance. Nairobi: EAEP.Google Scholar ↗
  30. Odero, J., Natsume, Y., & Wakayawa, S. (2009). Urban and architectural space of slums in Kenyan literature: Space in the Urban Trilogy by Mwangi. J. Archit. Pann. Aij., 74(638), 3993-1001.Google Scholar ↗
  31. Odhiambo, T. (2007). Alternative moral economics, crime and violence in Kenyan popular culture in East Africa. Trenton, NJ: World Press.Google Scholar ↗
  32. Odhiambo, T. (2008). Kenyan popular Fiction in English and the Melodramas of the UnderDogs. Research in African Literatures, 39(4), 72-82.Google Scholar ↗
  33. Samkange, S. (1980). Hunhuism or Ubuntuismo: A Zimbabwean indigenous political philosophy. Harare: Graham Publishing.Google Scholar ↗
  34. Schwerdt. D. (1994). Reconstructing Identity in Postcolonial African Fiction /Individualism and Community in the Novels of Ngugi wa Thiong’o. (Unpublished doctoral thesis).The University of Adelaide.Google Scholar ↗
  35. Tutu, D. (1999). No future without forgiveness. Cape Town: Image Books.Google Scholar ↗
Author details
Ombati, Martha Flavian
✉ Corresponding Author
👤 View Profile →